Brazilian BBQ in Rio de Janeiro


 
T

Tom Chips

TVWBB All-Star
I just got back from a 10 day vacation to Rio. One of my main goals was to try and find the brazilian BBQ places I had heard about. Wasn't hard to do. They were everywhere, and the meat was plentiful.

It was amazing that for as little as the equivalent of $15 you could have all you can eat meat, and a very nice salad bar that had millions of choices.

I took a ton of photos while I was there, even a few of the cool restaurants, along with the servers who had their large selections of meat on spears that they would carve off onto your plate for you. But all the pics are in the hands of some unique individual who mugged me at knife point on the beach.

So my recommendations, screw Rio, do it yourself at home and save the $$$. Not to mention the 13 hour flight from Houston.

I did get a few ideas to try though. They had some amazing buffalo sirloin that they would simply rotissierie with very coarse sea salt, that was quite delicious. And they did something interesting with garlic. They would dip or baste the whole meat spear thingy with a nice potent garlic based oil or glaze of some sort that was really, really good.
 
i've tried the brazilian chicken and bacon BBQ at a local brazil BBQ joint here in los angeles. it was amazing! pretty neat how they have it all on those giant skewers!
 
Nice, Tom.

I'm currently in Playa Del Carmen and these people don't know a damn thing about BBQ.
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Haven't found ANY yet.
 
MAN! I was looking forword to seeing some awesome photos, right up until the "point" you said you got mugged
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You should have traded him the camera for the memory card
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He didn't speak english, and was in a hurry to get away. I tried pulling the camera out of my pocket myself first, so I could get to the memory card, he ripped it out of my hands and took off.

It's cool how they carry the meat, with a big slicing knife, they carve off thin slices right on to your plate, until you turn this little green card over to the red side, to indicate your are finished.

My one criticism is that the meat can tend to be overcooked. It looks great while they slice it, but it can quickly dry out on the plate. I think what they do is walk around and serve everyone that particular type of meat, but if it isn't finished, they put it back on the rack to let the outer edges crisp and brown up again.

That and they used a bit too much salt on the chicken. It was so salty, I could barely finish the bite in my mouth without washing it down with soda.
 
I love the food in Rio, Tom, but their definition of BBQ is very, very different from ours. I happen to love how much they salt the meat, and when you get the filet or the picanha that is loaded with garlic...heaven!

I hope you didn't go to Mariu's in Copacabana...way over priced. When I first went there nearly 25 years ago it was top notch but it's slipped quite a bit. I love going to Porcao (I prefer the one in Baja de Tijuca to the one near Santos Dumont airport) but most anyplace near the beach turns out a yummy "filet com batata frites" which hits the spot on a hot day. But soda? At the very least you have to wash down the salty yummyness with lots of ice-cold chopp (draft beer); my preferred beverage is many caipirinhas...

Very sorry to hear about the mugging but I'm very glad you're ok. The crime in Rio is beyond horrible (as it is in Sao Paulo which is another great place to eat, imho) and frankly you're lucky something worse didn't happen.

I hope you got to try a lot of different restaurants there; I love the variety and different flavors of the food.
 
Next time you want Brazilian style rodizio just fly into Newark, NJ.

There is a large Portugese and Brazilian population centered around Ferry Street in the southeastern portion of the city.

There are rodizios all over the place.
 
Yes, the Ironbound has some very good places. There are also a few very authentic Brazilian places in Long Branch, if you get down to the Shore.
 
Nice story Tom. Next time I'm out of the country, I'm going to stock up on small sd cards and be sure to keep changing them. Gig cards are cool, but I don't think I ever came close to filling one.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by j biesinger:
Nice story Tom. Next time I'm out of the country, I'm going to stock up on small sd cards and be sure to keep changing them. Gig cards are cool, but I don't think I ever came close to filling one. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Professionals won't even think of using large cards. If the card is lost, broken or goes bad, they'll lose an entire days worth of work. If they split it up into 20 smaller cards, the chances of losing an entire day are smaller. The pros I know change memory cards almost as much as they changed film before digital took over the industry.
 
That's a great idea. I will take all that into account next time. But the nice thing was a 4 GB card was only $7 on amazon.

These people were really king at making delicious pork! Between that and the steaks, I was in heaven.
 
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